SCSU Teaching Academy

You are invited to participate in the 2015 SCSU Teaching Academy to be held Monday,
May 11 and Tuesday, May 12, from 8:30am – 4:30pm, in Engleman A120. Join your colleagues
for a refreshing professional development event featuring an interactive keynote on
Mindfulness in Higher Education, workshops by SCSU’s model Teacher/Scholars on pedagogy,
technology, and student success, and informal dialogue.

Our keynote speaker is Mirabai Bush, Senior Fellow and founding Director of the Center
for Contemplative Mind in Society, a nonprofit organization whose mission is to encourage
contemplative awareness in American life in order to create a more just, compassionate,
and reflective society. She has designed and led contemplative trainings several
professional groups and corporations, including Google. She is a director of the Center’s
program in higher education, including the Contemplative Practice Fellowship awards
and the Association for Contemplative Mind in Higher Education. She is co-author,
with Dan Barbezat, of Contemplative Practices in Higher Education: Powerful Methods to Transform Teaching
and Learning; co-author, with Ram Dass, of Compassion in Action: Setting Out on the Path of Service; and editor of Contemplation Nation: How Ancient Practices Are Changing the Way We Live.

Mirabai teaches at Smith College School of Social Work in the Contemplative Clinical
Practice Advanced Certificate Program and at Amherst College in the student orientation
program in yoga and mindfulness. She formerly taught writing and English literature
at SUNY Buffalo. She directed an innovative program there for diversifying the university
and preparing students of color for academic challenges. Her spiritual studies include
meditation in Bodh Gaya, India, with Shri S.N. Goenka and Anagarika Munindra, and
in Burma with U Lakana; bhakti yoga with Hindu teacher Neemkaroli Baba; and studies
with Tibetan lamas Kalu Rinpoche, Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, Kyabje Gehlek Rinpoche,
Tsoknyi Rinpoche, and others. She was a student of aikido master Kanai Sensei.